By
Nowa Omoigui
Until the coup of 1966, civil-military relations after independence basically
followed the classic model. Soldiers were rarely seen in public in their
uniforms unless there was an official event. Barracks were mostly
separated and remote from concentrations of civilian housing. Political speech
making, writing articles in the lay press without approval, or political
campaigns in barracks by or at the behest of soldiers were not allowed.
Furthermore, in part because there was no significant external threat, but also
because of the predominance of British officers at the top until 1965, the army
command played very little role in security policy making. The major
foreign policy decisions of that era were made by the political class.
Even in its internal security role the Army did not make
However, the socialization process that made this relationship possible seemed
to be confined to the uppermost echelons of the military where officers who had
spent the longest amount of time working directly with British officers before
independence were to be found. Coincidentally, certain key officers at
these levels shared certain social origins with the political leaders.
Officers at lower and middle rungs of the ladder, however, did not share many
of those attributes because the transition from decolonization to
democratization was rushed, driven by notions of patriotism.
From October 1st 1960 until May 1st 1965 when he died naturally of an illness
Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, the second Vice President of the Northern Peoples
Congress, served as Minister for Defence. From May 1965 until January
1966 his place was taken by Alhaji Inua Wada, also a member of the NPC.
They were both civilians with no prior military service. Ribadu (also
known as "Power of Powers") was a very influential and highly regarded
politician with extensive connections across the political divide. His
sudden death in April 1965 is said by some to have seriously undermined the reconciliation
of the frayed political relationship between the NPC and the NCNC after the
January 1965 crisis which may have prevented the January 1966 coup.
Indeed, active plotting for coup actually began after his death that year.
Ribadu presided over a rapid expansion of the Army and Navy as well as the
creation of the Nigerian Air Force. The establishment of the Defence
Industries Corporation, the Nigerian Defence Academy, a second Recce Squadron
(located at Abeokuta) and two new Artillery batteries occurred on his
watch. He got practically all his budgetary requests through parliament
including approval to spend 19.5 million pounds on defence from 1962-66 as compared
with 5.5 million pounds during the preceding seven-year period.
Defence costs as a percentage of Federal recurrent spending from 1958-1966
ranged from 7.7 to 9.9%. Defence costs as a percentage of Federal capital
spending during the same period ranged from 1.5 to 12.1%. Pressure to expand
the military did not originate from within the military. It came from the
political class. Resistance to additional defence spending did not come
from the legislature or the public. It originated in 1962 and 1964 from
other Ministers as well as economists in the Ministry of Finance concerned
about failure to meet national economic targets. Ribadu lost the
Chairmanship of the Economic Committee of the federal cabinet in 1964, a
position he had used skilfully to protect and oversee his defence
appropriations. Thus civilian oversight of military budgeting in the
first republic was total and exclusive.
In my opinion, the late Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu is probably Nigeria's best
Defence Minister since Independence – a point that belies the tendency these
days to think that civilians with no military experience cannot run the
Ministry of Defence. In addition to Ribadu there were Ministers of State for the
Army and Navy.
From February 1960 until August 1961 Dr. Majekodunmi, a
physician, was the Minister of State for the Army. Then Jacob Obande held
the position from August 1961 until December 1962. From January 1963
until January 1966 the position was held by Ibrahim Tanko Galadima - a
personality (unlike Ribadu) whose grasp of military affairs and protocol was
not respected within the military. Mr. M. T. Mbu was Minister of
State for the Navy from 1960 to 1966. Mr. AA Atta was the permanent
secretary from 1960-64 while Alhaji Sule Kolo held the position from
1964-66. Like the substantive ministers of that era, both were
northerners.
One area in which there was direct political interference from the political class
as a group in military professional policy was in the question of quotas for
Army recruitment, which nevertheless reflected legislative pressures in a
multiethnic society. Such political pressures to apply the federal
character principle have found their way into subsequent Nigerian constitutions.
Other than one or two alleged cases, politicians generally stayed out of purely
military professional matters. Even when the departing GOC General
Welby-Everard, (for a variety of reasons dating back to events in 1951 and
1961), recommended either Brigadier Ademulegun or Ogundipe as his successor,
the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister chose to stick with the principle
of seniority and chose Ironsi instead - perhaps mindful of NCNC sensitivities
coming as it did, after the constitutional crisis in January and around the
time of the acrimonious fight over the Vice Chancellorship of the University of
Lagos. The literature reports that Brigadier Ademulegun
lobbied for the position of GOC through his friend the Sardauna, but it would
seem that the political leadership of the Ministry resisted all such
pressures. Until just before the collapse, therefore, the link
between the Army leadership and the political class was mostly formal and
appropriate. Although informal liaisons existed on the basis of alma mater and
other shared values, these did not rise to the level of the client networks
(such as "IBB Boys" or "Abacha Boys") that came to
characterize future military regimes in the country. Nevertheless,
in a country where ethnic identities were and are often stronger than
professional identities, any perceived coincidences of liaisons with the
ethnic, political and security map of the country were bound to provoke
suspicion among officers who considered themselves outside those networks.
The final intervention of predominantly eastern junior and middle ranking
military officers resulted from the gradual decline in the cohesion and
legitimacy of civilian institutions, signs of which were already evident from
the time of the December 1959 federal elections before independence. Certain
long standing colonial military policies, amplified by the fractious nature of
Nigeria's political framework set against Nigeria's unique history provided a
backdrop to contentious civil military relations after independence. As
the role of the independent army evolved from external missions and its
participation in internal security deepened, political antagonisms toward
elements of the political class were amplified as it found itself making
judgments and allocating values. Latent societal cleavages began to
undermine esprit d'Corps. It
was from among those who enlisted between 1957 (when the FDC took over from the
British Army council and introduced quotas into the rank and file) and 1961
(when quotas were introduced into the officer corps) that the deepest schisms
appeared, enabled by other political undercurrents in larger
society. As the Roman military writer, Vegetius (De Re Militari),
wrote in 378 B.C.: 'An army raised without proper regard to the choice of
its recruits was never made good by length of time.'
In the final analysis, driven by bitter fights for political control, lack of
unity in the civil class between the coalition partners, NCNC and NPC, along
with disenfranchisement of some stake-holders in the Action Group (who
continued to be loyal to the jailed Chief Awolowo) played a crucial role in
undermining whatever organized resistance (with or without British help) the
political class might have put up to save democracy when some soldiers came
calling in January 1966. Indeed, military intervention may have been
sought by aggrieved elements of the political class. As the Police Special Branch report put it: "..sometime
during August 1965, a small group of army officers, dissatisfied with political
developments within the federation, began to plot in collaboration with some
civilians, the overthrow of what was then the Government of the Federation of
Nigeria."
[http://www.gamji.com/NEWS1103.htm]
Fearful of certain anticipated political decisions which
might have involved the use of the Army to forcefully restore order in the
Akintola-led Western region and cram the results of the controversial October
1965 election down the throats of voters, the coup was finally launched on
January 15, 1966. But as I have noted previously, the paradox about
this alleged NPC plan to "wallop" the West is that the late Prime
Minister, Tafawa Balewa, in his last interview just before the coup was
actually contemplating a political solution to the impasse in the Western
region, one that might even have involved a coalition government and the
release of Chief Obafemi Awolowo from jail. At the final meeting just
before H-hour in Major Ifeajuna's house in Lagos, the Police report says "Major Ifeajuna addressed the meeting on the
subject of the deteriorating situation in Western Nigeria to which, he
contended, the politicians had failed to find a solution. He added that
as a result the entire country was heading toward chaos and disaster".
One of the key participants in the coup, Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi has also
recently expressed the opinion that there was "information" that the
NPC dominated Federal Government would declare a state of emergency in the NCNC
dominated Eastern region in coordination with an agitation for the creation of
Rivers state. In the Army's official history of the Civil War, Nwobosi
said: "Adaka Boro was
stationed in the Rivers area to start off some insurrection and the East would
have been declared an area under a state of emergency like was done in the West
under Dr. Majekodunmi." Nwobosi also said that this information
"is not something you will hear and go to sleep". Such perceptions -
some of which were plainly false –among officers with sympathies for (or views
coincident with) the United Progressive Grand Alliance, set against the
NPC-NCNC-Army constitutional crisis of January 1965 and the background tensions
inherited at independence, provided fuel for the events of January1966.
Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi (rtd) who led operations in the West during the coup,
holds the opinion that President Nnamdi Azikiwe was briefed about the coup plot
by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna in Lagos - but points out that his own sub-group was
not in on Ifeajuna's duplicity. He has also said that one of the intentions
of the plotters was to release Chief Awolowo from jail - a somewhat strangely
coincident plan to what Prime Minister Balewa was contemplating before he was
killed.
In the state of confusion that reigned after the Prime Minister's abduction on
January 15, refusal of the President of the Senate (Nwafor Orizu, an easterner
from the NCNC - who was also acting President) to accept the appointment by the
NPC dominated cabinet of an interim Prime Minister (Dipcharima, a northerner)
closed whatever option remained to formally invite British Troops in (with or
without a pact). With no constitutional provision for such a move, Orizu
and the rump cabinet chose to "hand over" to the Army Chief, Maj. Gen.
Ironsi, (himself an easterner) allegedly to give him needed authority to put
down the coup attempt which had already collapsed in the south.
It appears from testimony provided by former President Shagari that the British
would likely have responded to an invitation from Acting Prime Minister
Dipcharima in the same way as they did in East Africa two years earlier.
Indeed, other sources claim that a British Battalion was already on
standby. Interestingly, recently declassified American State department
archives also show that American intervention was also contemplated in Nigerian
government circles before the rump cabinet was advised to "hand over"
to General Ironsi to "avoid disaster". Along with the brutal
and regionally asymmetric murders that accompanied the coup, this fateful decision,
which Orizu later defended as "patriotic", ushered in a very bloody
chapter in Nigerian history. However, surviving officers of the January
15 plot (like Nwobosi and Ademoyega) seem united in their belief that it was
General Ironsi's 'misrule', rather than their unfortunate actions that night,
that led Nigeria to chaos in the months ahead.
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